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"I know." Her eyes moved over me with complete attention and no apology for it. "Hands on the counter. They don't move."

I gripped the edge.

"If you let go," she said, "I stop. Everything stops, and I drink my coffee, and you stand there and watch me drink it."

"That's psychological warfare."

"Yes." She lowered her head to my breast and took my nipple into her mouth, slowly, and dragged her teeth across it, and I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper and still couldn't swallow the sound. "Still," she said against my skin.

"You're going to... I need..."

"I know what you need, baby." She looked up at me through her lashes. "You'll get it when I decide to give it to you."

"When is that, roughly?"

"When I'm ready." She moved to the other side, and my knees tried to go. "You're going to be patient for me."

"I have never been patient a single day in my life."

"Then today's a first." She bit down, not quite hard enough, on purpose. "I'm going to take my time with you, and you're going to stand here and take it. And when I'm done, you're going to say 'thank you' like a good, obedient girl."

My whole body went hot.

The first night, against her front door, she'd told me I'd take what she gave me and say thank you, and I'd told her there was no chance in hell. I'd been so sure.

"You remember that," I said.

"I remember all of it." She pulled back just far enough to meet my eyes, her fist still holding my hair. "Every word you've said to me since the tunnel, Harper. I remember every one."

I stopped breathing.

"Turn around," she said.

I turned.

She pressed up against me from behind, the whole long, warm length of her, and her free hand came around and spread flat over my stomach and pulled me back into her. Her mouth found my throat. She kissed my neck, my shoulder, the place where my neck met my shoulder that she'd marked three weeks ago, and the mark was long gone. She found that exact spot without looking for it and bit down there again, slow and deliberate, like she was putting it back.

"Mine," she said against my skin, very quietly.

Her hand slid down my stomach and between my thighs, and I jerked against the counter, and she made a low sound of satisfaction.

"You're already..." She pressed her fingers against me, not inside, just pressure, and my hips pushed back into her before I could stop them. "Harper."

"Don't be smug..."

"I'm not." Her voice wasn't smug. It was rough and amazed. "You have no idea what you do to me."

She pushed a finger, then another, inside me with no warning at all, and I cried out loud enough to wake the whole building. Her hand came up from my stomach and clamped over my mouth, firm and immediate.

"Walls," she said into my ear. "I could hear your neighbor's TV through them at four this morning. Which means they can hear you."

I nodded against her palm.

"So you're going to be quiet for me," she said. "Or I'm going to keep this hand right here. Your choice."

I made a muffled sound against her palm that meant keep it there, and I felt her smile against my neck, and she kept it there.

She started to move her fingers, and I lost the ability to think about my neighbor, or anything else. She'd learned what I needed in one night three weeks ago and hadn't forgotten a single detail. The depth. The curl on every stroke, finding the spot that made my vision flash white at the edges. The pace that built and built and didn't let anything break.